December 2009
Carla C. Keirns, MD, PhD, MS, American Journal of Preventive Medicine

Professional, Charitable, and Community Coalitions

Coalitions in Roxbury MA, Harlem, and Detroit identified pollutant sources within their neighborhoods as their major concern, especially garbage incinerators and bus depots, and advocated for local source remediation and blocking the location of new polluting facilities in their neighborhoods.

At Boston’s Alternatives for Community & Environment (ACE), students who were being trained in environmental science and community activism identified asthma as a priority for themselves and their peers. One third of their first group of students had asthma themselves, and the rest had family members with asthma. Mothers in the community had noticed that bus exhaust pipes are at the same height as the breathing zone of elementary school children, and raised questions about whether their children’s pollutant exposures were greater than generally recognized.

Community members teamed up with researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and used mobile air sampling devices to collect data on fine particulate matter and particle-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. They created a GIS map of neighborhood pollutant levels, which found increased levels near bus depots, along bus routes, and in the 3-to-4 foot–high level at which many children breathe. This kind of neighborhood-level mapping has become feasible only recently, and the ACE–HSPH was one of the first groups to use it.

Read the whole article.